Saturday

If you haven't seen the new Adidas Star Wars spot and microsite yet, you're missing out. First off, the launch spot (posted below) follows the tone and style of the original Adidas Houseparty work. But with the addition of Star Wars and some sweet Darth Vader shots, the new spot is set to make a mark and stop a lot of people from fast forwarding through it on their PVR's.

The real gem of this campaign, though, is the microsite. Launched in late November, the site integrates Facebook Connect and creates a short story about Darth Vader targeting your location. When I logged in via connect, my profile picture was pulled into the movie and so was a Street View picture of my flat in London (not sure how they pulled this one into the experience...somewhat strange but still cool!).

Vader then, using the Death Star, targets my flat and blows it up - leaving a large Adidas logo in the Google Map where my flat once was.

After the experience is over you get the usual stuff (send to a friend, become a fan, etc). I like this campaing because it creates a digital experience around the product, incorporates social aspects into it (and Adidas as over 2 million fans on Facebook) and generally gets the user excited about the product.

I wouldn't consider myself a hardcore Star Wars fan by any means, however after watching the spot, going through this experience and checking out the inspired kicks, it's hard not to want a pair.

Wednesday

For the last week, I haven't had a mobile phone. I've been in the UK for just under a week now and just haven't had time (or a bank account, until today) to actually get one. For someone who had an iPhone and a BlackBerry for the past two years, it's a dramatic and strange change.

I know, I know - 1 week? What's the big deal? In reality, when you're addicted to a variety of digital outlets (social networks, texting, gaming, photo's, etc), you'd think that you could just get your fix on your computer. But in reality, when you're busy running from meeting to meeting and project to campaign, you don't have time to spend checking Twitter, writing blog posts or commenting on the go. And this has had a huge impact on me.

To be honest, I didn't notice it until yesterday after work. Getting home around 9PM and being obsessed with getting online and doing 'personal stuff' (read: messing around online). Fast forward to midnight and it felt like I hadn't acheived anything. Why is this?

Because having a mobile allows you to compartmentalize your personal bits throughout the day. Like leaving your inbox for two hours and coming back to a hundred emails, I find my personal digital endeavours are the same. If you don't manage them in your daily downtime, they build up and you spend your online moments trying to catch up.

But that's the strange thing - the phases of the withdrawl from a mobile life. For me, they are the following:

1. Relief: Nobody can get a hold of me (sometimes quite nice) and I can find anyone - when I want to - online. I can focus on the tasks and just unplug and shut down.

2. Missing out: The DM's and messages start to pile up. The blog posts stop getting posted and the Reader has 1000+ unread posts. I start to get worried that I'm deeply behind.

3. Panic: Seeing a title wave and wondering what to prioritize in the limited amount of downtime that I might have. Do I chat with people on Facebook or read my favorite blogs from the day? Do I watch a TED talk or update my LinkedIn profile? With a mobile, you never have to choose, you just prioritze.

4. Evaluation of digital essentials vs. time wasters: Right now, I'm questioning some of my digital 'priorities'. Do I need to update Twitter on a daily basis to maintain my follower base? Do I need to check my 60+ subscriptions ever morning to find new news? What, in my digital life, can I give up?

When you have a mobile, you have another way to connect. You can squeeze more, short, experiences into a day and feel as if your multi-tasking. But if some of those tasks don't really matter, what - exactly - are they worth?

Apps, geotracking, AR, location search, Sixth Sense...all mobile technologies that are going to give us more capabilities and connections. But at the end of the day, if you don't have them right now, do these technical add-ons become things you can't live without? Or just things that you wish you might have never found in the first place?

If you haven't seen the video for the Nexus One phone have a look at it before you read the rest of this post.

The simplicity of the communication, the minimalist approach to the design makes that video an absolute stand-out. Think about how complex the features of that phone are and think about the endless list of benefits those features can deliver to the end-user. Instead of killing our eyes with details and over-loading our minds with messages the showcased the product in a way that to me is magical and turns me on.

Definition 6 and Coke are delivery happiness. It reminds me a little of the VW Fun Theory from an experience standpoint, but that is more than OK. That is awesome.

The way that this execution will ignite the conversation around the brand and how it delivers happiness is the way more agencies and all marketers should be thinking. 5 years ago this execution would not have the impact or even be executed the same. To have impact move beyond the walls of the campus and the friends they would have needed to have a PR campaign supporting this, hoping that the video they shot gets shown on the evening news, covered in the dailies the next, shared in the school newspaper, etc. Then they would hope that consumers who viewed the PR would go online and visit coke.com or search for the video and find the site to see the full video.

That or they would have had to turn the vidoe into :30 and :60 spots and spent a bucket of money on media to get the world to see what they are doing (delivering happiness).

The social web has made the cost of distribution move to $0 very quickly so brands should be spending their money on creating experiences & content that consumers will see as valuable and distribute on their behalf, not on media.

Currently the video is at 4,700 views on YouTube and it appears has been up for about 16 hours. Lets see where it is in 24 more hours.

Everyone has heard the stats that consumers trust the recommendations of peers and friends more than advertising (big surprise there). At the same time we all know that social media and the features and functionality of the always evolving world wide web have enabled us share, express our opinions and make our networks and communities know all of our likes and dislikes.

Trident has picked up on both of these nuggets of knowledge and created this print ad. Well done.

Thank you to the wonderful Christine Santimaw for sharing. Image from Mashable.

Sunday

I really hope that this video is a part of some Nike Superbowl commercial. Oh my do I ever pray that this is a calculated part of a strategy that will ultimately reveal itself as a genius superbowl campaign.

I'll admit it, I'm a fan of the Diamond Shreddies campaign (and not just because it's Canadian). But this new webspot from Raisin Bran Crunch is hilarious and instantly classic.

Like Shreddies, Raisin Bran is a pretty boring and unchanged product. It's extremely difficult to get people talking about it and most of the existing advertising is easy to ignore (see any US spot). Not anymore. A fun idea with nice execution and one that will get noticed by a large target.

Loving this new campaign for LactoFree (a milk product). It would have been so easy to do a boring "Guess what? Now people who are lactose can drink milk again" spot but W+K choose to do (what they normally do) and create a campaign built around an insight and an idea.

People with lactose have typically had a bad experience with a milk product (after all, how do you think you initially figure out your lactose intolerant? You spend the morning feeling awful and then go see a doctor who tells you that it was probably the milk you poured on your favorite cereal).

As a result, they are very reluctant to try milk again - even if it's lactose free. As a result of this fact, W+K uses the "take me back" approach that a boyfriend traditionally uses on his girlfriend who has either kicked him out or dumped him (or both).